<p>@ silence
I think from a cs technical prospective, MATLAB is a programming language. But personal preference is also welcome.</p>
<p>What gstein suggests is that he doesn’t want the poster to assume that learning MATLAB is THE language for civil engineers. And that MATLAB is a programming language that employers want civil engineers to know. </p>
<p>I know most schools require all engineers to take at least one computer science language because learning one will open more employments to graduates. Even basic structural programming can be a bonus toward a graduate’s resume. </p>
<p>In public I can refer MATLAB as a technical language. But when I discussed this with my classmates (I had MATLAB in freshman year), I referred it as “technical application”. Most people may not use MATLAB as a programming language like C++, Python, or Java.
Writing an M-file program requires knowledge of MATLAB synatx, which it depends on the toolkits the coder is using. But then again, gstein is probably suggesting poster not to confuse with that MATLAB is the computer language that an engineer should learn.</p>
<p>I don’t know about whether civil engineers ever have a technical lab course using matlab. But I know calculus 3 and in computer engineering, MATLAB is used in both courses for stimulations and computations. But I don’t count it as a programming language. This is just how I categorize things under personal preference.</p>